*This story will contain spoilers for “Agatha All Along” and “WandaVision”*
About halfway through the first trailer for “VisionQuest,” the third and final installment of the “WandaVision” trilogy, supercomputer human Vision sits in a movie theater and watches a video of his old life. He and his wife Wanda are dancing with their two babies, Billy and Tommy. It seems nostalgic, like watching a home video from 20 years ago.
“That family wasn’t real,” Vision mutters to his friend, sitting beside him in the theater.
“You sure about that?” he responds.
As a fan of the “WandaVision” trilogy, this strikes a chord. Wanda Maximoff and Vision have always been my favorite Marvel characters. Wanda was one of the few female superhumans in the early days of Marvel and, unlike others, she rarely did the right thing. She was a villain, then an Avenger and later a national security threat.
As an angsty teenager, I had more feelings than I could compute, and Wanda felt like a reflection of that. She was always trying her best, but it was never enough – and I felt the same.
I felt especially connected to her relationship with Vision, her robot friend-turned-boyfriend. He never yelled at her; he treated her with respect and loved her in spite of her flaws. Their relationship gave me hope that I could be loved and that, despite everything, I was a good person. That’s why I fell in love with them.
Looking back, most of my teenage years were filled with ‘champagne problems,’ yet they swallowed me whole. To me, Wanda and Vision’s love story was a light at the end of the tunnel.
This is why when Vision questions if his family — and by extension his love — was ever real, my heart breaks. It is also why when “VisionQuest” premieres tonight, I can say something that many others may not: I’m genuinely excited to watch it.
And I have something crazy to say: You should be excited to watch it too.
I know that watching a Marvel show right now isn’t most people’s first choice. It’s not even Marvel Studios’ first choice.
Rumors circulated last summer that the studio planned to cut back on its production of live-action series on Disney+ after “VisionQuest,” according to Collider.
As a fan, I’ll be the first to admit that the studio has been on the decline since 2022, and that tuning in to their content can sometimes feel like a chore. Yet, through all the “eh” movies and shows of the last five years, the trilogy of “WandaVision”, “Agatha All Along” and “VisionQuest” have been some of the few pieces of media to get me truly excited.
And why is that? The answer is the same reason why you should be excited for “VisionQuest”. In a market oversaturated with impersonal superhero movies, the “WandaVision” trilogy tells stories centered on grief, love and the human experience.
And the beauty is that each show tackles these experiences differently. “WandaVision” shows what happens when grieving brings people together. In “Agatha All Along” these emotions tear people apart. And while I can’t say I know what happens in “VisionQuest”, trailers show that it will attempt to discuss a whole new question: what happens when you are forced to grieve your own life?
“WandaVision” makes its mark
The first installment of the trilogy, “WandaVision”, premiered in 2021; an interesting time for Marvel Studios. Before the show premiered, the studio had released two major hits, “Spider-man: Far From Home” and“Avengers: Endgame”, which became one of the highest grossing films of all time. Even more so, the studio was in a transition period during COVID-19 and “WandaVision” was their first original series to be released on Disney+.
The show follows Wanda after the events of “Avengers: Endgame” as she deals with the death of Vision.
When starting “WandaVision,” unlike in a typical superhero show or movie, viewers are thrown into a black-and-white “I Love Lucy”-esque sitcom. The show opens with a song that expresses its central theme:
“She’s a magical gal in a small town locale / He’s a hubby who’s part machine / How will this duo fit in a pull through? / Oh, by sharing a love like you’ve never seen.”
Despite being superheroes, the couple deal with “normal” problems throughout the show’s nine-episode run. They have a nosy neighbor named Agnes, they forget about hosting a dinner party and, at one point, fight over the name of their kid.
The most meaningful issue that they deal with, to me, is the passage of time while dealing with grief. Their kids, who also have powers, are able to age themselves in times of sadness. When their dog dies, the kids threaten to “age up” to escape their feelings. Wanda stops her children, saying:
“There are rules in life. We can’t rush aging just because it’s convenient. And we can’t reverse death no matter how sad it makes us.”
The irony of this – and the show – is that Wanda attempts to reverse death herself by creating the fake reality of “WandaVision.” In the second-to-last episode, viewers learn that Vision bought a home for him and Wanda “to grow old in” together before he died. After learning this, Wanda creates a fake reality where they can be together with the imaginary children she created (cue 1950s sitcom). In the process, she traps everyone in the fictional town of Westview.
In the final episode, Wanda is faced with a decision: let go of her husband and kids, save the town and cope with her loss. Or keep her family, but keep an entire town trapped.
In the end, she chooses to save the town and slowly closes her fake reality. In her last moments with her family, she thanks her kids for “choosing me to be your mom.”
In her last moments with Vision, a line from the previous episodes becomes strikingly resonant:
“What is grief if not love persevering?”
That line, along with the rest of the show, is what makes “WandaVision” so memorable. These aren’t superheroes dealing with the end of the world, or an alien threatening to take over NYC; it’s a family in a small town dealing with small town family problems.
“WandaVision” made perfect sense to me as a teenager during the COVID-19 pandemic. What were supposed to be some of the best years of my life turned into a grief-stricken time when I was mourning my teenage years. It was easy to feel alone in the emotions I was experiencing. And while I wasn’t dealing with the death of a family member, in the solitude of my bedroom, I was creating my own perfect reality like Wanda.
The show not only impacted me, but also became a global success.
It received 23 Emmy nominations, including lead actor, actress and supporting actress in an anthology or limited series, and won three—the most out of any Marvel show to date. My love for “WandaVision” is what led me to tune in for “Agatha All Along” in Sept. 2024. Unfortunately, leading up to the premiere, the conversations surrounding the show weren’t all positive.
Yes, it was really “Agatha All Along”
The show came at another turning point for Marvel Studios. In July 2024, they officially cancelled what was supposed to be the next big superhero team-up movie, “Avengers: Kang Dynasty,” after its main star was found guilty of third-degree assault. The studio then announced that they would be creating “Avengers: Doomsday.”Many fans felt this meant that Marvel Studios lost any sense of direction in their movies, and that what they had built since 2021 meant nothing. For example, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Loki” introduced Kang as a major villain, suggesting that he would be a huge part of ensuing films, yet he would never be seen again.
On top of that, “Marvel fatigue” became a huge problem between 2023 and 2024 for both fans and casual watchers. During that time, two projects involved primarily female leads: “The Marvels” and “Echo”. They were both considered flops, and“The Marvels” became the studio’s lowest-grossing film of all time.
Basically, Marvel wasn’t doing great. And while some people blamed the studio for churning out shows and movies too quickly, others blamed the show’s content, including the use of female leads.
A writer for The Maneater wrote that she wasn’t sure about “Agatha All Along,” noting that “a minor character getting a spinoff television show to herself was, at best, likely to be subpar and gimmicky.”
To me, this was part of a larger belief about the show: it wouldn’t be great because of its female lead and focus on minor characters.
Sentiments like this led to “Agatha All Along” being overlooked by many Marvel fans. But the show was groundbreaking in many ways that deserved recognition. Besides being female-led, it also contains multiple queer characters. There is only one male main character, who is gay, and Agatha is in a centuries-long lesbian situationship with the female embodiment of death. Yes, you read that right.
The show follows Agatha and her disjointed coven as they venture along the witches’ road — like the yellow brick road with the vibe of the 2009 film “Coraline” — to have their biggest wish granted.
While Agatha is the coven leader, she is universally disliked by the other members; they believe she gave up her child in order to gain access to the Darkhold, a spell book that gives users immense power at the cost of corrupting their mind and soul.
Besides that, the show continues “WandaVision’s” themes on family, grief and how we deal with it while exploring women gaining power and becoming the best versions of themselves.
The difference between “WandaVision” and “Agatha All Along” is that Wanda turns to others to seek comfort in times of loss. In “Agatha All Along,” the opposite is true.
This becomes clear in the last episode, when viewers learn that Agatha’s son, Nicholas Scratch, was supposed to die at birth. Agatha begs Death, her girlfriend, to keep him alive.
“You do this and I will hate you forever,” Agatha says. “Please let him live, please my love.”
“I can only offer time,” Death responds.
That time is six years. Agatha keeps Death at bay by killing other witches so she doesn’t take Nicholas. Unfortunately, Agatha skips a day on her mass murders and her son dies that same night.
Agatha then keeps her promise to Death that she would hate her forever, and Nicholas acts as a sore spot between them. Every time the pair seem to be on the verge of rekindling their relationship, the memory of Nicholas stops them.
The loss of a family member—and ultimately the sorrow that follows—tears apart their relationship, creating lasting impacts that they just can’t seem to get over.
“I’ve got a scar. A long time ago, I loved someone. And I had to do something that I did not want to do, even though it was my job. And it hurt them. She is my scar,” Death says at one point.
In the end of this push and pull between the two, they somewhat make up. With a literal kiss of death, Agatha exchanges her life so another boy can live and makes up with Death in the process.
Globally, the show did make some waves: it saw a 35% increase in views during its seventh episode compared to its first, according to Variety. It also amassed a massive fanbase online, especially for queer females.
While the show maintains similar themes to “WandaVision,” viewers now confront what happens when we grieve as a group. Do we come together, or does it drag us apart?
The now-trilogy’s exploration of how we deal with these emotions seemed to age with me. I was no longer a self-centered teenager when “Agatha All Along” premiered, but a full-blown adult who understood how grief now affected relationships and experienced it much more frequently.
In the end, both shows had massive impacts on me emotionally. They taught me about grief, how we deal with it individually and as a group, and what loving means. They also taught me to enjoy time with my family more, as both shows demonstrate how you never know when it can be taken away.
So what about “VisionQuest”?
Now, two years after “Agatha All Along” and almost five years after “WandaVision,” the trilogy is back for “VisionQuest.” And I worry that the show isn’t getting the attention it deserves from fans or the studio.
“VisionQuest”’s first trailer was released in August despite a mid-October release date. The first official trailer for “Avengers: Doomsday,” opening this December, was released on the same day. Also, in a bizarre last-minute decision, the studio decided to release the show a day earlier than originally scheduled. While this might not seem like a big deal, I think it demonstrates the lack of care given to the show.
And once again, “VisionQuest” is coming at another inflection point for Marvel Studios. There is a lack of excitement surrounding their projects and the show, and I can see why. Since Vision is not a major character, I worry that people won’t tune in.
But the thing about the “WandaVision” trilogy is that it isn’t a superhero series. It’s a series focused on human-centered feelings and issues. The superhero aspect is secondary, so all those reasons to skip it don’t fully apply.
I know I’ll be tuning into “VisionQuest” not only because of my love for the series, but because of where I think the show will go in its continued exploration of grief. Based on trailers so far, Vision seems to be dealing with his own ‘death’. His old life is gone, and he has to rebuild with a lack of support. As a recent college graduate who moved across the country, I’m also dealing with similar feelings: everything I’ve known feels lost, and I’m learning to rebuild one day at a time.
Additionally, in an age where consumers are looking for original pieces of work instead of retold stories, I think “VisionQuest” grants viewers that luxury. “WandaVision” swung for the fences with its multi-decade sitcom approach, and it worked. “Agatha All Along” did the same with characters that would often seem odd in the Marvel universe. In the spirit of those, the third and final installment will most likely be unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
In a current market with Marvel fatigue, a lack of original content and impersonal superhero movies and shows, I have hope that “VisionQuest” will be different.
“Visionquest” releases today on Disney+.
Edited by Camila Echevarria and Nia Crichelle Robertson